It's been a long time since we've been the most powerful nation on the planet. Counting on China for weapons doesn't seem like a good plan.

But that doesn't really matter, I'm just saying guns have provided a lot of the freedoms we enjoy. They are certainly not useless.

Since this thread likes to compare the ~0 chance a gun will prevent a home invasion to the ~0 chance of the owner killing himself with it, I don't really know. The same stats the anti-gun lobby uses to "prove" people don't need guns for protection also prove they don't need to be concerned about gun ownership.

You're right, I just don't get it.

Well, obviously Canada=US in every way. LOL!

Special snowflakes ITT.

Although this is a tangent beyond all tangents, I'm interested to hear what metrics you use to justify that China is more powerful than the U.S.

It's pretty clear that the NRA is in essence a wing of the "Old South"/"Conservative"/Secessionist/(racist)/Anti-Federalist/Confederate/Tea Party/Misguided/Republican party.

This is not to paint the entire Republican party with the same brush, but from interviews I've seen with NRA big wigs, when it gets down to the nitty gritty of "why do we need to unequivocally allow high capacity, high firing rate assault weapons with effective ranges of 300+ yards and body armor piercing capability?" the answer seems to come back pretty consistently that these weapons are needed to protect citizens from the Federal Government itself, from what they view as the overstepping of political boundaries and the Federal government stepping on the rights of the states.

In other words, 2nd Amendment measures, "get your government fingers off my medicare", "Obamacare is the communism of the anti-christ", "Ron Paul, Rick Perry, and Joe Arpaio will lead us back to the golden age of the South", "you can't force us to have civil rights or racial equality" etc etc etc.

It all seems to go hand in hand with these big right wing (read, "Jesus") militia groups. Therefore I think the NRA beef is in actuality less about selling guns or protecting citizens rights, rather than just an allegiance to a bull**** ideology.

kind of like how people say they believe in the virgin mary?

LOL!

there is definitely a case to be made for gun ownership in the united states, and guns should be legal and regulated for good citizens. But that does not get around the central hypocrisy of the NRA's position

Did drugs become decriminalized during the 90s? Was the decade of "3 strikes" laws super-soft on the war on drugs? Most people would say the War on Drugs intensified during this period, yet crime went down.

You're intentionally being intellectually dishonest and you know it. It's not even a "lol u" moment here, it's just embarrassing for us to watch.

I find it weird that anyone would say the Drug War intensified the decade after the biggest anti-drug White House left office.

Look up incarceration rates. At the very least, there wasn't a huge decriminalization policy in 1990.

The Illinois laws have actually passed out of committee and are available for viewing.

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-...-bill-1263.pdf

http://www.thetruthaboutguns.com/wp-...endment-1-.pdf

The first bill defines "Semi-automatic assault weapon". Subsection (A) is the worthless listing of specific firearms that are banned (worthless because a company need only change the name of a banned firearm and it is no longer specifically banned). Subsections (B) and (C) are similar to the federal Assault Weapon definition. But then there are two additional sections. C-1 is pointless. But C-2 defines as a banned assault weapon, "a semi-automatic rifle or a pistol with the capacity to accept a detachable magazine, a muzzle brake, or muzzle compensator"

Since those are listed in an "or" clause, it appears to define every semi-automatic pistol with a detachable magazine as an "assault weapon"!

However, the alarmists were wrong that pump action shotguns are banned--they are specifically excluded and are not considered assault weapons.

The law then goes on to say that the sale, purchase, or possession of an "assault weapon" is banned as of January 1, 2014. I've seen articles say there is no grandfather clause, but it appears that you are allowed to possess assault weapons as long you register the guns first. You can only transfer the guns to an heir, out of state, or to a gun dealer.

The second bill makes the same restrictions for "large-capacity" (more than 10 rounds) magazines.

Where can I order a civilian tomahawk missile?

Which planet are you living on? Everyone else lives on the one where America is undoubtedly the most powerful nation and its just plain dumb to say otherwise.

Seriously? If trolly's chart is correct the argument is the exact same. If ending the war on drugs is so crucial to lowering whatever the chart is graphing why did it drop so much during the 90s when funding for the drug war and arrests for drug use increased to new highs?

Your response is as dumb as saying "guns have been easy to obtain since before the large drop lol u"....

I agree with Ikes that guns and drugs are the same. I would go further and say that we should treat gun ownership abuse as a health problem and not a criminal problem, through outpatient gun ranges and group therapy. I would also suggest placing sanitized ammo magazines in bathrooms in high crime areas. We may not be able to stop someone from shooting (up) but we can limit infectious diseases from spending!

the last 200 or so posts itt I'm pretty sure are some kind of performance art

Pretty sure this has been covered, but the jump is cocaine getting popular in the US. In fact, I'm fairly certain trolly made this exact comment. There is no corresponding piece of evidence that explains why crime has dropped in the face of more gun availability.

http://www.bloomberg.com/news/2013-0...s-village.html

guns still deadly in Switzerland (also wtf at the "I thought it was kids shooting at cats")

http://www.npr.org/2013/01/02/167984...se-in-homicide

Interesting article.

And what about crack, pot, meth, etc? Pretty sure drug use didn't drop by half since 1990, and our policies sure haven't been massively lebient.

Crime rates fall in cities like Chicago, LA and New York that have highly restrictive gun laws. Meanwhile lots of rednecks SC and lower buy a metric ****tonne of guns.

Conclusion = guns stop crime. Somehow.

Lol notsureifserious.

All of these cities have higher crime rates than the us, and two of them have had gun laws significantly loosened in the past 10 years. But good stuff dude.